


Both Sides Now

by ColdFeetBeforeSunrise



Series: Love My Way [2]
Category: Halt and Catch Fire
Genre: Cameron is soft y'all, F/F, Painful Amounts of Pining, Pining, so much pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 16:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19009492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColdFeetBeforeSunrise/pseuds/ColdFeetBeforeSunrise
Summary: Life takes you places you never could’ve imagined on your own. Here Cameron is, 33 and still learning that.Or:Cameron’s take on the events of Love My Way.(Can be read without Love My Way, too!)





	Both Sides Now

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y’all—not even gonna try to explain my absence because there’s no real excuse… I’ve been sitting on half of this for the better part of a year and randomly decided today was the day to get it done.
> 
> Dedicated to the 5 of you that care. Particularly Randomizer, who waited the longest. Forgive me!
> 
> Enjoy!

“You’re taking _forever_.”

 

Haley says this with disdain from where she’s spread out on the reading chair, and honesty, Cameron’s inclined to agree.

 

The blanket that Donna so heartlessly abandoned to get up and rewind the VHS tape is strewn against Cameron’s abdomen in a decidedly un-warm way. Donna, clad in the microchip-themed pajamas that Joanie had fished out of a goodwill bin last summer, is so concentrated on the task at hand that Cameron can see the little line forming between her eyebrows.

 

“It takes as long as it takes,” Donna says, not looking up.

 

Donna works diligently, and despite having seen her leaning over to fix something for half of her adult life, Cameron watches her. The way she wipes a hair off her brow. The way she crosses her feet under her butt as she leans forward to put the tape into the VCR. The way she winces slightly as she stands, still sore from that hike they’d done in Yosemite last weekend.

 

The FBI warning flashes by in its blue glory, and with Haley and Joanie’s focus now on the TV set in front of them, Donna climbs back into Cameron’s arms.

 

As soon as she feels Donna curl into her, Cameron drags the blanket up their bodies, adjusting so that Donna can lean her head against the side of Cameron’s jaw the way she knows she likes to. Feeling a sudden and unexpected surge of adoration, Cameron closes her arms around Donna, pulling her in close and squeezing.

 

And who is she becoming, anyway? She was never this way before: this over-bearing, mushy-gushy type who _squeezes_.

 

Maybe it’s the feeling of getting to hold someone in her arms, a thing she never imagined she would enjoy as much as she does. She’s never able to surround anyone else she’s ever loved this way before; never been able to hold her entire world in her arms.

 

Sometimes she thinks it’s the way Donna smells.

 

And maybe that was the first clue, all those years ago, when Cameron’s only conscious thoughts of Donna were ones of judgment and disdain—even then, in that Dallas bathroom, Cameron recalls thinking consciously that Donna smelled amazing.

 

Life takes you places you never could’ve imagined on your own. Here she is, 33 and still learning that.

 

“I love you.” She says, and it slips so naturally from her lips, just like it did the first time. Donna turns slightly in her arms, feeling her way through the darkness and placing a small kiss on the side of Cameron’s nose. Cameron holds back a giggle. She feels Donna shift in her arms.

 

“Sorry,” Donna says in a whisper, “I can’t see. It’s dark.”

 

Cameron’s only response is lean in and kiss Donna’s nose, too. Donna giggles, and Joanie grans loudly on the other side of the room, “Guys, it’s a movie. Shhhhh.”

 

Donna rolls her eyes and leans back against Cameron, sinking into her like a chair, hands grasping at her thighs like armrests. And Cameron encircles her in turn, pulling her close and pressing her nose into her hair. She inhales Donna, closing her eyes and picturing every version of her simultaneously, the years flying by in her mind…

 

\- - - - -

 

 

_“I have an idea…”_

 

After it all, after the long talk in the diner, after the goodbyes and the hugs and the promises to meet up when she’s returned to from whatever ridiculous trek she has planned, Cameron gets in her truck and turns the key with every intention of pulling away and decisively starting a new chapter of her life.

 

The engine roars to life and Cameron, suddenly overcome with an unexpected and unwelcome urge to cry, tries to look up at Donna like a normal person.

 

Well, she tries. She can’t seem to lift her gaze from the gearshift.

 

Without actually looking up at her, Cameron can picture Donna standing a few feet from her truck, arms crossed, watching her. It’s Donna’s processing look she’s picturing, the one reserved almost exclusively for big life events, where she watches in silence, working through it in her own time.

 

When Cameron finally does lift her gaze, she finds Donna closer to the truck than she’d anticipated, standing by the window. She mouths something Cameron can’t make out and definitely can’t hear over the engine.

 

Cameron lowers the window with its manual crank, finding something she hadn’t accounted for in Donna’s expression—there’s a glassy quality to her eyes, and something softer and sweeter than Cameron expected.

 

“Don’t… don’t be a stranger, okay?” Donna says, and she looks away when she does it, “Call or something.”

 

Donna’s eyes drop to Cameron’s lap in the car. Cameron searches her face, memorizes it; takes in this expression, this side of Donna she’s only now becoming familiar with.

 

“I will,” is all she says, and Donna drops her hand down on Cameron’s wrist, rubbing it a little.

 

And it feels like Cameron’s throat is closing up, what with all the words she’s holding in. But she can’t say anything. She has to go.

 

Cameron rolls the window up, pulling out of the parking space carefully. When she whips back around after backing up, she finds Donna still looking at her.

 

Donna gives her a last feeble wave, and Cameron offers her a sad smile in return.

 

She pulls out of the parking lot.

 

\---

_The last mile is the longest._

 

She can hear Bos’ thick Texan accent wrapped around the words in her mind.

 

_The last mile is the longest…_

_…but after that you’re home._

 

The streetlight comes down on her hard through the window. She squints, registering the still-red light across the way, and props her elbow up on the window, running fingers through short hair.

 

Knowing that Donna’s house is only just up the road is complete torture. Cameron’s eyes are barely able to focus. Her butt is numb, she’s needed to use the bathroom for nearly 20 minutes now, but can’t bring herself to stop for anything. Not when she’s so close.

 

The light finally turns green, releasing her from hell. She guns it, speeding down Palo Alto streets, directing herself toward the hills. The radio cuts out but Cameron barely notices, lost instead in her thoughts.

 

Before she can decide why, she pictures Donna, clad in her red dress from that last party, sprawled across the couch waiting for her. Her mind traces the curve of Donna’s neck beneath the gold necklace, down her body and down to her legs—

 

Alone, in the dark, Cameron flushes.

 

Where was she going with that?

 

She chastises her mind’s eye, biting her own lip and shaking her head.

 

Donna probably wouldn’t even be awake.

 

If there was anything she’d learned in all of her years of knowing Donna it was that 1) she never waited up for anyone, not even Gordon and 2) she had the constitution of a baby koala, possessing an uncanny ability to fall asleep wherever she was. Meaning that even if she wanted to stay up, she probably couldn’t.

 

Cameron smiles slyly to herself, endeared. She feels a little silly, smiling giddily to herself in her car, all alone. She ignores the way her nerves are putting her on edge; ignores the way her dulled senses get sharper as she gets closer to her destination.

 

She’s spent the majority of the trip pushing thoughts of Donna away, trying not to mention her to people she talks to; trying, desperately, not to be the freak that can’t go three weeks without talking to her best friend.

 

(And she only slipped up once, calling her from a gas station and smiling like an idiot at the sound of her voice _._ )

 

She’s tried to attribute this obsession to something else: having had an amazing idea together, one she can’t wait to get started on; going the better part of several years without speaking to Donna and then suddenly reconnecting just as she’s leaving…

 

(But somewhere in there, thoughts of _this is not normal_ sink in.)

 

(Cameron refuses to listen to those. She can’t.)

 

(She only just got Donna back. She can’t lose her again.)

 

She pulls into Donna’s driveway at 3:03am, reaching into her glove compartment to pull out the key Donna had hastily taken off her own chain and given her at the diner weeks ago. Just as she finds it, she sees the front door open.

 

Donna rushes through the grass, finding Cameron just as she climbs down from the truck.

 

Even in the darkness, there, Cameron can see Donna’s eyes shine—that glassy quality takes over again, paired with an expression Cameron can’t place—and before Cameron can say anything, Donna has wrapped her in her arms.

 

Cameron lets her arms close around Donna, inhaling her.

 

(She knows, in that moment, that she will never leave Donna again.)

(Her certainty terrifies her.)

 

\---

 

They get worse, the feelings.

 

(She’s calling them feelings now, for one thing.)

 

Like most things Cameron would rather not deal with, her inconvenient feelings for Donna seem to be the only thing she’s capable of focusing on.

 

 _“Cam._ ”

 

Cameron snaps out of a daze, zoning back in from a minute and a half of looking down at Donna’s hands. Her careful manicure, short and rounded and nothing like Cam’s mother’s; the gentle wrinkles betraying age and time spent typing, washing, drawing, tinkering—

 

Cameron’s eyes dart up to Donna’s face. Donna’s soft grey-blue eyes look green in this light, and light up with a teasing, questioning expression. Her bangs hang over her eyes and Cameron looks down, not giving herself any excuse to reach out and push them away.

 

“Sorry, I don’t know where my head went.”

 

Donna smiles, “I don’t know when you became such a space-case. You and Joanie both.”

 

And _that_ makes Cameron wince. She doesn’t like being compared to Donna’s daughters—not because they’re not great, but because it makes her feel like Donna’s overgrown daughter… and that’s not ideal for several reasons.

 

She forces herself to level her gaze with Donna, trying to smile. Her hair flops in front of her eyes and suddenly Donna’s there, pushing Cameron’s hair out of her face and behind her ear. She does this all without thought, smiling faintly, and Cameron guiltily tries to swallow the heat pooling in her gut.

 

And Donna’s not even really looking at her, somehow immediately able to switch back into work mode. It reminds Cameron what she is to Donna—a partner, a friend.

 

Nothing else.

 

\---

 

Cameron jumps head first into Phoenix. She dives back into sleepless nights of typing and drinking exclusively orange soda, re-acclimates to the depth and intensity of the coding problems she’s trying to solve. And she and Donna, well…

 

Working with Donna again is in some ways like rediscovering an old album you used to love: Cameron had forgotten how much she enjoyed working together and relished in the familiarity.

 

At the same time, working with Donna was like listening to that album over and over again and discovering new things each time: at some point Cameron wonders if there’s always been this much complexity to Donna or if she’s just drawn to it now in a way she’d never really let herself be drawn to it before.

 

While they work, they talk about Tom. About Joe. About Rover and Pilgrim and every project in between. They theorize about what Mutiny could’ve been. About what would become of them if they were still in Texas.

 

Cameron learns about Donna’s career as a VC; about the person Donna had been for the past year, a person Donna hated. Donna hears about Cameron’s different levels of _stuck_ —every time Cameron thought she’d hit a breaking point there was always a new level to fall to. It can’t be a coincidence, Cameron thinks, that they both had hit rock bottom before they’d come back together. It was the way things worked. Almost like fate.

 

She doesn’t mention that this—Pheonix, working with Donna—is the first time she’s felt un-stuck in a while. It goes with without saying.

 

Things always felt best when they were together.

 

\----

 

Still, there are a lot of things they don’t talk about.

 

They don’t talk about the fact that Cameron rarely, if at all, goes back to the airstream. The polite thing to do was to leave before she was asked to, but Cameron couldn’t pull herself away from Donna and Donna never asked, and…

 

They don’t talk about Gordon’s death.

 

Sometimes there’s a fond memory—something odd or sweet and mentioned in passing, like a comment about someone they didn’t know as well. They don’t tear open the wound that was his passing, deliberately staying away from anything that requires them to think harder, dream harder, _pretend_ harder.

 

Sometimes, Cameron can convince herself he’s still around, somewhere. Just a phone call away.

 

(Sometimes, she passes Donna’s bedroom and hears deep sobs that remind her he’s not.)

 

(She can’t do anything about Donna’s pain. And it kills her.)

 

And then there’s the last thing they don’t talk about…

 

“Hey Cameron, are you seeing anyone?”

 

Haley asks this one morning while peeling an orange, eyes not even leaving her plate to take in the odd amount of tension that her question creates.

 

Cameron immediately lifts her gaze to find Donna looking up curiously from her book on the couch. As soon as Donna sees Cameron’s attention on her, she shifts her book a little in her lap, as though to pretend she was just moving a little in her seat. Cameron frowns.

 

She’s now taken so long to respond that Haley’s looked up from her plate.

 

“No,” she says because that’s both simple and true, “why do you ask?”

 

“Just curious.” Is Haley’s response, and if she thinks she can leave it at that she’s got another thing coming.

 

Just as Cameron opens her mouth to press her, Donna cuts in: “It’s not nice to pry, Haley.”

 

“I was just asking! Cameron’s cool and like… attractive and stuff. It’s kind of a shame she’s spending all of her time with us when she could be--“

 

“Hey, squirt?” Cameron says, her words sounding considerably more calm and controlled than she feels, “I love hanging with you guys, okay? Way more than I would like hanging out with some stupid boy.”

 

“Okay.” Haley says like Cameron’s said something ridiculous, and Cameron’s not sure she disagrees.

 

\----

 

Cameron decides to go back to the airstream for a few days after that.

 

Cameron hasn’t craved alone time— _real_ alone time in the back woods—for several months now, and still doesn’t, probably, but it feels like the right call anyway. She finds the idea of being apart from Donna and Haley kind of painful, if she’s being honest, but decides to use it as an excuse for personal growth. She’s gotten too comfortable here, at Donna’s house. It was time for her to return to her own.

 

She packs hastily, telling Donna and Haley she’s leaving only as she’s carrying her bags out. Neither protests. When they ask her when she plans to be back, she tells them she doesn’t know.

 

Having left suddenly and with not a lot of planning she forgets a lot of the essentials: food, toilet paper, a lighter for her fire pit. Cameron relies on her supply of beans in the pantry for the first night, deciding she’ll make her way to the store the next day.

 

She spends most of the first day back trying to dive back into her work the way she has many times before and finds herself so distracted she takes herself on a hike. She hikes for hours and hours, forgetting what time it is and where she’s going, exactly, until she reaches the ocean. She sits on the beach until it’s cold and the sun has gone down, and then hikes back up the hill in the dark forest.

 

While Cameron walks back, she’s not really aware enough to be scared of the dark, stuck in a mental cloudy haze. She reaches her plot of land nearly by accident, only remembering when she’s returned that she doesn’t have anything to eat.

 

(She pictures Donna then, going through her pantry and chastising her for not taking better care of herself.)

 

(Oddly, this warms her heart.)

 

She finds a bag of marshmallows in a drawer somewhere and, when she sees they’re miraculously not expired, tears them open. She trips over matches in the dark and proceeds to use them to try to light a fire in her fire pit, flailing in the darkness without a flashlight.

 

Rolling back onto her knees, arms covered in soot, Cameron pushes her hair out of her face and sighs. It’s only been 24 hours since she got here and she already can’t picture the next 24 hours. She can’t even light a fire to keep herself warm.

 

She’s not even sure what she liked so much about this place, anyway. It’s dirty, dark, cold. There’s not a store open for miles and miles. Right now it’s the only this place and her stubbornness that stands between her and who she—

 

The phone rings.

 

Cameron bolts up, dashing up the steps of the airstream and tripping over her duffle on her way to the phone. She picks it up with haste, and despite having no reason to be this sure she knows who it is, she’s right.

 

“Cameron?” Donna’s voice comes through the receiver and it’s an immediate relief. Cameron shifts a little on her feet, her eyes just now adjusting to the darkness inside.

 

“Donna, hey.”

 

“Where have you been? I called you earlier.” Donna says like she was worried and Cameron’s heart flutters a little at the thought of someone being worried about her.

 

“I went on a hike.”

 

“Oh, okay.” There’s a long pause, and then, “I… I forgot what I was calling about, actually.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

Donna covers up the receiver on her end, but Cameron can still hear her giving some instruction to Haley.

 

“What was that?” Cameron asks.

 

“I was talking to Haley. We’re making pasta.”

 

“Ah.” Is all she says. She can picture it with startling clarity: everything, down the pans, the plates, the burner on the stove—all of it defined in her mind despite the boring domesticity. She pictures it like something she knows. A place she goes back to in her head. A place she belongs.

 

“How’s the outdoors treating you?” Donna must ask, because it replays over and over in Cameron’s head. She’s not listening, not really, because her mind is miles and miles away and she doesn’t skip a beat when she responds, “do you guys have room for one more?”

 

“You’re coming back?” Something about the way Donna says it sends a chill down Cameron’s spine, and if she was on the fence a second ago, she’s all in now.

 

“I’ll see you in an hour and a half.”

 

When she arrives back at the house, but Donna and Haley greet her with a hug. No one asks her why she left, why she came back immediately. They ply her with pasta and tell her about a new episode of the X-files.

 

(Standing in the doorway, Donna holds her in her arms like something to be cherished.)

 

(And Cameron, despite herself, lets her heart flutter with something like hope.)

 

\----

 

This is not Cameron’s first crush on a woman.

 

There was Amanda, back in first grade. She was tall for her age and slim and liked to read her dad’s physics books the same way Cameron did. They used to play together in the backyard and one time, while wrestling, Cameron grew distracted imagining leaning forward to kiss her.

 

(She pictured it over and over in her head for years, the memory like a lullaby that played behind her eyes before she fell asleep every night.)

 

(And that’s all it could be, really: a dream.)

 

In high school, it was Claudia. 12 years her senior and stunning, it was Claudia Cameron had to thank for inspiring her love for computers—she was the school’s computer science teacher. Claudia encouraged Cameron and doted on her, always impressed with how much effort Cameron was willing to put into her assignments.

 

It wasn’t long before Cameron let her adoration for Claudia take over her life. Cameron watched her two kids, spent evenings eating home-cooked meals and chatting up her engineer husband, Ty. She finally had the time she wanted with Claudia, even if it wasn’t the way she’d wanted it. She let herself forget how hopeless it all was.

 

It was never real and never would be.

 

\----

 

Love was a powerful force for change.

 

When she loved Tom, she’d once taken out the sowing kit her mother had sent her and, despite a truly debilitating lack of knowledge, sowed a button back on his shirt. With Joe, she’d taken up calling him on the phone, a thing she’d always tried to get out of before. When he worked late, she used to order his favorite take out before he got home, wanting him to know she cared.

 

But now… she just cared so much.

 

Being in love was noticing the little things—Donna’s routines and schedules, her meal preferences, her tiny eccentricities. Cameron soaked up facts about Donna like a sponge, always wanting to know more. She worked hard to keep her intentions under wraps, but couldn’t keep herself from committing facts about Donna to memory.

 

Suddenly and without warning, Cameron was preoccupied with the cleanliness of the kitchen. She wandered the halls of grocery stores and remembered to get the pesto Donna had complained about not having last Thursday. She learned when it was best to approach Donna and when it was best to give her space.

 

She often thought back to the home they’d shared prior, back when Donna was still with Gordon, and remembered the amount of work Donna had put into the upkeep. Cameron worked to pick up Haley’s slack, and found herself chastising Haley like a parent might.

 

And once again Cameron slips into dangerous territory. But unlike with Claudia, Donna’s life has room for Cam. There’s a natural hole in Donna’s world, and despite knowing that she’ll never really be able to, Cameron tries to fill it.

 

\----

 

Sometimes, Cameron can fool herself into thinking that Donna feels something for her, too.

 

There are looks, sometimes. Things Donna says. Assumptions Donna makes.

 

Donna had taken to puzzling in her spare time, and Cameron, despite having considerably less patience for it, occasionally chose to help. The puzzle they were working on that night was something large and complex—lots of challenging sky pieces that Cameron was completely losing patience with—and there were moments where the entire house doubted their ability to finish. Not a soul was more determined than Donna.

 

It was night, and Donna had dragged in a lamp from another room to illuminate their work. Seated not too far from her, Cameron could claim with one hundred percent certainty that Donna was far more engaging than the puzzle could ever be. With Donna distracted, Cameron let her eyes map her face. She was close enough to see every freckle, every tiny wrinkle.

 

She was no longer scared of how she felt. She was more or less resigned to it now, letting the masochistic desire to be as close as possible wash over her in her weaker moments. And boy, was she _weak_.

 

Finally managing the strength to look away, it’s a couple minutes before Cameron looks up again. And when she does, Donna is there, looking at her. Their eyes meet for the thousandth time, but it feels like the very first.

 

Something about the way Donna regards her makes Cameron feel naked. Naked, exposed, but also seen. And when Donna blinks a little, Cameron feels her lean in.

 

\----

 

It’s slight, and Donna immediately pulls away, but Cameron still thinks about it for _weeks_. Obsesses over it.

 

(What _was_ that?)

 

(… and more importantly, _would it happen again?)_

 

\----

 

On the night they finish their prototype, the night before Joanie comes home, Cameron holds her breath.

 

They have wine. They swim. Cameron wonders if she imagines the way Donna watches her emerge from the pool, eyes dark, gaze too serious to be friendly. She knows she’s not imagining the way Donna sways a little, tipsy from the alcohol. When they go inside, just towels and wet hair and slices of cake, Cameron’s too nervous to even eat.

 

Donna swings in and out of Cameron’s space, and finds it funny to lean in to her, or to take her in her arms and sway with her. Cameron’s never pictured Donna as a handsy drunk. She never pictured herself being made so nervous by it.

 

Later, they change in Donna’s room. Donna tosses clothes at Cameron and seems to watch her change, blinking slowly. Cameron wonders how conscious she is, really, and how much she’ll remember in the morning. She breathes deep and shoves down her arousal, pulling a shirt over her head.

 

Seeing her struggle, Cameron participates in dressing Donna, who is unable to get out of her one-piece swimsuit. The skin around Donna’s stomach is soft, and Cameron swallows her attraction, trying her best to shove the thought out of her mind. She averts her eyes, heartbeat loud in her ears.

 

As the night passes, Donna eases in to a more reasonable amount of tipsy. Cameron moves from worrying about Donna to enjoying her company, and eventually, they collapse on the couch, wrapped up in each other.

 

She tells Donna about Pilgrim and Donna plays with Cameron’s hair, running her fingers through it. Cameron closes her eyes and imagines a world where this is every day, forever.

 

When Donna finally falls asleep, Cameron curls herself around her. _Just one night_ , she tells herself, _one night and I’ll be done with it._

 

\----

 

“So what is this I hear about you sleeping with my mother?”

 

She doesn’t know what she expected. Joanie always cuts to the core. She calms her nerves, trying her best not to appear stiff, and tries to pivot quickly:

 

“I mean, you know, it was only a matter of time.”

 

And she means it as a joke, she really does, but Joanie nods like that makes sense and Cameron’s struck with the idea that maybe it’s not such a crazy notion, after all. She woke up in Donna’s arms. Haley’s reaction and Donna’s subsequent freak out had created more questions than they answered. She had never seen Donna so flustered, and still, even hours later, Donna couldn’t meet her eyes.

 

But now she’d left an awkward opening in the conversation where she shouldn’t have.

 

“I mean—“ Joanie starts, and Cameron cuts her off with a weak, “that was a joke.”

 

Joanie nods like she doesn’t buy it, smiling like she has a secret. Still, she does nothing to challenge it.

 

Cameron flushes, looking down at her cereal.

 

\----

 

They dance around it for months.

 

(And the good news is, Cameron knows she’s not alone in this anymore.)

 

Shared glances during meetings. Finger brushes. More platonic touching all around. One movie night Cameron finds Donna scooting closer to her until their thighs are touching. She experiments with tossing an arm around Donna, but can’t bring herself to leave it there longer than a few minutes.

 

And all this dancing leaves her exhausted, really. The mild flirting. The small gifts and thoughtful gestures. The little notes Donna passes her during meetings when they think Bos isn’t looking.

 

They can only dance around it for so long.

 

One day, Cameron finds Donna at her desk, writing out some notes by hand. And even though Donna’s more busy than she’d pictured her Cameron doesn’t want to lose her nerve so she just blurts it out:

 

“Do you want to come to the airstream with me this weekend?”

 

Donna doesn’t even look up when she starts to say, “I think both of the girls are out this weekend—“

 

“Just you and me.”

 

And that makes Donna look up. And that expression takes over again, the one Cameron can’t name. The one just for her.

 

“Oh.”

 

Cameron holds her breath.

 

“I would love that.”

 

And you would think it was Christmas, the way they both break out in matching grins.

 

\----

 

All Cameron remembers about the day they’d kissed for the first time is the amount of nervous energy flowing through her. All the prep that she’d put in to making that weekend worth it, all the things she’d planned to say… they all faded when she and Donna reached the beach.

 

In a burst of energy, Cameron had rushed up a sandy dune, leaving Donna in the dust. She’d completely forgotten that the age difference mattered, and when she turned around to find Donna heaving, tired from running, she’d laughed.

 

Nervous laughter had bloomed between them then. Terrified, overwhelmed, second guessing every decision she’d ever made… every emotion Cameron had thought to feel had melted away the moment she’d met Donna’s eyes.

 

Donna’s eyes had welled up with that expression, the one Cameron hadn’t been able to place. The one she hadn’t known existed until she’d started to see it all the time. A small crinkle between her brows, lips parted, eyes wide but also searching…

 

Donna kisses her.

It’s Donna that closes the gap, and knowing that something unlocks within Cameron. She pulls Donna flush against her, desperate to fill the new void within her, the one that calls exclusively for this person, forever.

 

When she pulls back, Donna’s crying and smiling and…

 

… Cameron’s never seen anything so beautiful in her life.

 

\----

 

And really, she should’ve seen Donna’s apprehension coming.

 

They were _business partners_. Cameron knew better than anyone what it was like to wait for Donna to fully consider a proposition.

 

She could feel the gears turning in Donna’s head on their way home from the airstream, and part of her knows those gears may never actually stop turning. Not when it came to this.

 

Cameron retreats to her work, finding some oddly religious or superstitious part of her that actually prays that Donna won’t elect to leave her. Or to deny her. Or to call it all a mistake and shut Cameron out of her life forever.

 

And it doesn’t happen that way, because Cameron won’t let it. Rather than talk about their relationship, rather than validate it in any way, Cameron swallows the part of her that needs that validation and starts kissing Donna in the dark. Sneaking into her room at night. Holding her hand under tables and watching men flirt with her at networking events.

 

(And Donna can breathe a little, after that.)

 

In some ways, it’s the best thing for their relationship, this secret. It gives them the time to figure out who they are together, and gives them space to get to know each other in a way they never really have before. It’s the best thing.

 

Cameron knows this, deeply. She has to. She has to convince herself it needs to be like this because believing anything else might kill her.

 

And the secret’s not so bad, not really, until it starts to feel like a weight resting on her chest. A weight that gets heavier and heavier until Cameron can no longer ignore it. Until she’s staring up at the ceiling late at night, unable to sleep.

 

\----

 

At Phoenix’s launch party, Cameron stays by the bar, chatting up Bos and Diane and trying to avoid the masses of strangers that want to talk to her. Donna, obviously, does the opposite. That’s just who they are.

 

For as long as she’s known her, Cameron’s known that Donna soaks up an audience like sunshine, and even just watching her from across the room you can feel the aura of innate confidence that she exudes. Cameron can still remember when her primary feeling was one of jealousy, and it feels almost silly now.

 

(Because now, all she feels is pride.)

 

And she’s barely paying attention to Diane and Bos at all, trying to catch Donna’s eye from across the room. It’s when Diane is trying to tell Cameron about some guy she wanted to set Donna up with that Cameron can’t help but do a spit-take.

 

“I’m sorry?”

 

“Can you remind her? You guys are so close.”

 

And Cameron can’t think of anything she’d like to do less, so she smiles her fakest smile and can’t even nod. Diane doesn’t know her well enough to see her distaste for what it is. But well, Bos…

 

“You don’t think he’s good enough for her?”

 

“Sweetie, she hasn’t actually met Blake…” But Bos doesn’t lift his gaze from Cameron’s.

 

“She’s got a lot to focus on, is all.”

 

“Just cause you’re a work-a-holic doesn’t mean that Donna has to be. Don’t you want her to find someone?”

 

Her eyes cross the room to find the woman in question. Donna laughs at a joke. Their eyes briefly meet, and Donna smiles before turning her attention back to the conversation at hand.

 

“Of course I do.” Is all Cameron says.

 

She takes another drink.

 

\----

 

On Cameron’s birthday, the family decides to keep things low-key. They go to dinner and a movie, and get ice cream afterwards. Cameron can’t help the way her eyes keep flickering to Haley and Natalie’s entwined hands, insides flaring with jealousy.

 

She and Donna sit a full foot apart, and despite it being Cameron’s special day, she can’t reach over and pull Donna into her arms like she wants to.

 

And it’s silly, it’s stupid… but she wants this so badly. Six months have rolled by and Cameron can’t even hold her lover’s hand in front of children she’s positive suspect something anyway.

 

When they get home, Cameron lays out on the couch, opting not to follow Donna down the hall to the bedroom. She stays like that for a while, unsure how long she’ll feel that way, unsure how or when she’ll find the strength to get up and continue lying to the world about who she is.

 

“Cameron.”

 

She lifts her head to see Donna in the doorway. Donna in… well, not much.

 

“Donna,” Cameron pauses, mostly confused, “what are you—“

 

Donna pulls her silk kimono a little tighter around herself. “Shhhh. Come on, we don’t have very long before they come back out here.”

 

Cameron stands up so fast she slips a little, and Donna giggles a bit as Cameron crosses the room to wrap her in her arms. All it takes is one hand beneath silk for Cameron to realize Donna’s not wearing anything under—

 

Donna swats her hand away, grabbing it and tugging her down the hallway. Cameron grins, worries forgotten when Donna pins her up against her bedroom door.

 

(Donna kisses away her worries. And for just a little longer, Cameron can forget.)

 

\----

 

She doesn’t know why Bos suggests toasts at Thanksgiving.

 

Maybe that’s how some families do it, she’s not really sure. This might be the first Thanksgiving Cameron’s celebrated in ages. Not much of a holiday for work-a-holic programmers from broken homes, she thinks.

 

Bos starts it with a toast thanking the lord for his family and his health, and praying for as prosperous a next near and every year after. Diane follows with a similarly health-focused toast, and Cameron shudders at the thought of having to worry about her own mortality, or the mortality of anyone she loves.

 

When it comes around to Cameron, she doesn’t really know what to say.

 

“I’m, uh, thankful for this group. Thankful that somehow, somewhere, the universe decided that I deserved people that care about me and… uh… I’m thankful for Phoenix,” She glances at Donna then, acknowledging their work-child, “and, uh, for all the good that that has brought us. You know.”

 

She pauses, thinks, and when she can’t come up with more, says: “yeah, that’s it I think. You guys and Phoenix. That’s my whole world.”

 

She looks to Donna, who smiles her reassurance. After a short but thoughtful silence, Donna opens her mouth to follow that up:

 

“I’m thankful for my family. Thankful for all who have joined and left it over the past few years and thankful for always having my daughters to turn to. I love you both.”

 

She looks to them meaningfully as she says this, but then seems to get lost in her thoughts for a second before continuing: “I’m thankful for Gordon. For the years we had with him and for all the things he taught me about love, care, and family. I would not be the person I am—“

 

She stops suddenly, and Cameron almost moves to touch her, watching her hold back tears.

 

“—none of us would be the people we are without him.”

 

It hangs in the air, Donna’s soft sniffle the only thing to cut through the silence.

 

“And I’m thankful for Cameron.” Cameron looks up at her, surprised, and finds Donna staring back at her, determined.

 

“Thank you for being my rock. In every way I’ve needed it since Gordon died. I don’t know where my family and I would be without you.” Joanie and Haley nod their agreement, and Cameron doesn’t know what to say.

 

(She loves this woman so much.)

 

Her eyes, now clouded with tears, shift down to her plate.

 

“Thank you.” Donna concludes. She takes a seat, and smiles a small sad smile at Cameron, who tries her best to return it.

 

\----

 

She hadn’t thought much of it at first, Bos sitting her down in the basement, handing her a beer. She’d prepared for some type of lecture. Some words of wisdom. And all of that was mostly just listening, anyway. She hadn’t prepared to speak.

 

But, try as she might, she couldn’t break the reverie. Donna’s toast replayed in her mind, reminding her how loved she was. How _in love_ she was.

 

And before she knew it, she was telling him.

 

She had just started, really, just said the words when Donna walked in. The tense air, Bos’ half-hearted hug… she’d just changed her entire world, hadn’t she?

 

\----

 

After the fight, after a few weeks of being ignored, feeling worthless, Cameron decides she almost can’t take it anymore.

 

She hasn’t left yet, mostly because that might alert the girls to something being wrong and that’s the last thing Donna would want. At the same time, she doesn’t know how much more she can take. Sleeping on Donna’s couch. Watching Donna from afar. Spending every waking moment together but not _together_.

 

She’s trying to be patient.

 

And she thinks she’s doing a pretty good job, really. She’s patient and kind. Not mopey.

 

But any pretense of her façade working falls apart the day Haley comes in to her (Donna’s) office and sits on the little ottoman, watching Cameron type something and chug orange soda.

 

“I thought you stopped orange soda?”

 

Cameron doesn’t appreciate the judgment in her tone. “I relapsed.”

 

Haley just sort of nods, then, and Cameron takes it as permission to keep working.

 

“I know.” Haley says softly, and even though Cameron can’t be sure what she knows, her heart literally skips a beat, “… about you and mom.”

 

Fuck.

 

“I don’t know what you mean.”

 

“You do, though. We all do.” The strength in Haley’s voice surprises her. “You don’t have to say anything.”

 

So Cameron doesn’t.

 

“She’s scared, Cameron. She’s like really scared. I talked to her today, and… you need to talk to her. Tell her that we’ll understand. We’re not scared… the world is changing. I’m proof it’s changing and…. She doesn’t have to be scared anymore.”

 

Haley looks up at her with pleading eyes and it takes everything Cameron has to break her gaze, “I can’t tell her that, Haley.”

 

“Why?”

 

“She has to decide not to be scared, Haley. No amount of telling her not to be afraid will help. It’s a decision she has to make.”

 

Cameron starts typing again, feeling Haley’s eyes burn into the side of her face. When Haley leaves, Cameron finally lets herself cry.

 

\----

 

There really seemed to be nothing different on that day. It felt ordinary, unimportant. It was slightly warmer than usual.

 

Cameron, as she’d become used to doing, chopped oranges and ignored Donna.

 

She’d left the kitchen feeling as though something was amiss, and then just as she’d gotten outside to bring the girls oranges, Donna had come out and kissed her. Pushed her into the pool. Flailed in the water with her. And then kissed her again.

 

(Days later, when asked by Joanie why it took so long, Donna will say she doesn’t know.)

 

(Cameron doesn’t know either.)

 

(It all seemed inevitable, at the end of the day.)

 

\----

 

The movie fades to black and the girls are quick to bed, exhausted. Donna, for her part, has fallen asleep in Cameron’s arms and seems to have no intention of moving. Cameron shakes her a little.

 

“Donna. Donna, come on.”

 

Donna’s brows furrow a bit, and she mumbles words of complaint.

 

“We should sleep in bed. Come on.”

 

Donna whines again, but this time Cam doesn’t hear her: “Hmmm?”

“Carry me,” she says.

 

Cameron groans: “Seriously?”

 

Before Donna can pout, Cameron pulls her up into her arms. Donna settles into Cameron’s neck, smiling against her collarbone.

 

“Spoiled brat.” Cameron starts as she carries her down the hall, “You know I do this because that one fantasy you told me about—“

 

Donna shushes her, trying to put a hand over her face, but Cameron licks her palm and then leans in to kiss her neck. It’s at that moment that Joanie passes through, making a beeline for the fridge.

 

“You guys are disgusting.” Is all she says. It’s all she needs to say.

 

Cameron carries Donna the rest of the way in silence, laying her down in their bed and pulling the sheets up her body. Donna shifts, getting comfortable, and Cameron can’t help but lean over and kiss her forehead.

 

As Cameron pulls away, Donna reaches out to stop her. Nose to nose:

 

“I love you.”

 

“I love you, too.”

 

Cameron turns off the light. She climbs into bed, her limbs finding Donna’s, and wraps herself fully around her, listing to her breathe.

 

(Most days, she can’t believe they ever got here.)

 

(But they did. And this is real.)

 

(This is the rest of their lives. This is forever.)

 

 


End file.
